In many cases, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is part of a solution to solve the communication challenges within supply chains. RFID tags enable supply chain partners to track business data associated with specific identifiers, thus providing item-level tracking capabilities with identifiers that conveniently do not require a line of sight to be read. This technology helps to increase the flow of goods and services within supply chains, increase reliability and reduce the cost of doing business.
Supply chain partners generally know where their product was immediately before they receive it, and they know where they send it. The problem lies when something goes wrong within the chain of possession of that product, such as damage, loss, or mishandling, and downstream partners request explanations from previous partners in the chain. Without a complete historical view of a product's life cycle, the process of investigating where a problem occurred can be time consuming and costly.
EPCglobal is a standards organization for developing and promoting the use of the Electronic Product Code™ identifier within RFID solutions. The development of the existing EPCglobal architecture includes the introduction of the EPC Information Service (EPCIS). The EPCIS includes a standardized set of interfaces, such as an event capture interface and a query interface, as well as a data model that support sharing of information. EPCIS was designed to help supply chain partners communicate using one global Object Naming Service (ONS).
The ONS is a master lookup service that stores either the birth record or, in some cases, the most recently recorded event record associated with an object identifier. This allows users to determine the point of origin of an RFID tag. While the ONS concept was created to enable sharing of product related information between supply chain partners, its limitations have kept it from becoming widely adopted.
Specifically, the ONS lacks a life cycle record and proper security. The record of an identifier in the ONS does not include information about the progressive life cycle of the product and its associated services. Without a proper life cycle record, partners receiving goods have no way of performing audit control and compliance checks to ensure the quality and integrity of their products. Also, with such a contracted view of the supply chain events, investigating loss or damage of goods can be expensive.
Further, because ONS is an open query system, it stores records for all identifiers, and anyone with access to the ONS can view those records. Without proper security, the confidentiality of a partner's competitive business data is severely compromised.
Accordingly, many of the RFID implementations that have taken place to date have been at large companies or organizations with the reach and power to dictate which solutions must be in place up and down the supply chain. Within these closely managed supply chains, large, enterprise-level solutions offering end-to-end visibility have been adopted. These “all-in-one” solutions provide visibility and benefits throughout the supply chain, but limitations arise in many cases, such as: when supply chains are loosely coupled; when there are competitors sharing the supply chain; and when direct connectivity between back-end systems is not an option.
Further, these solutions tend to be difficult to integrate with existing legacy systems, and require additional time and money to get them operational. All the partners in a supply chain need to communicate with each other to manage their business efficiently, and the above mentioned issues can impede this exchange of information.
Accordingly, it will be appreciated that the growing complexity of today's RFID supply chain networks has created the need for more advanced technology that solves the problems associated with managing and sharing large amounts of data.
When communication between supply chain partners fails, the flow of critical business data within these large and multifaceted networks can slow down or halt altogether. Supply chain partners currently have difficulty linking their data with that of other partners. Without upstream and downstream visibility of event data, partners have no traceable audit trail. Partners also cannot be guaranteed that their proprietary data will remain secure and confidential when using existing technologies.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to obviate or mitigate at least some of the above-mentioned disadvantages.